OPEC may include output quotas for Nigeria, Libya – Oman Oil Minister

OPEC and other oil-producing states could set quotas on oil production for Nigeria at 1.8 million barrels per day and for Libya at one million barrels per day, Oman’s Minister of Oil and Gas Mohammed Rumhi said Thursday.

Later in the day, the oil and energy ministers of all the parties to the oil output cut deal between the OPEC and a group of non-cartel states will hold a meeting in Vienna to discuss the future of the accord and its potential extension.

Ahead of the meeting, the Austrian capital hosted the session of the Joint OPEC-Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) established to control the implementation of the accord.

“I think they will try today to put a number for them [Libya and Nigeria], to try to get an agreement.

“Like last [time] you remember, I think, [the quota of] Nigeria was 1.8 [million barrels per day], [and the quota of] Libya – like one million barrels per day.

“So maybe today we will try to confirm that,” Rumhi said.

The oil producers’ JMMC on oil output cuts has recommended to extend the deal between OPEC and non-OPEC states by nine months, the minister told reporters answering a corresponding question.

OPEC and several non-cartel oil producers reached a deal in the Austrian capital of Vienna in 2016, agreeing to cut oil output by a total of 1.8 million barrels per day in an effort to stabilise global oil prices.

Non-OPEC states pledged to jointly reduce oil output by 558,000 barrels per day, with Russia pledging to cut production by 300,000 barrels daily.

In May, the deal was prolonged for nine more months, until the end of March 2018.

Libya and Nigeria, both OPEC member states are exempted from the obligation to cut production within the deal.